Summary: When an umpire makes a bad call our sense of fairness has been violated. Sometimes we scream at God, "bad call" or "not fair God!" This attitude reveals some ugly things about us.

Intro: Ever seen umpire make a bad call? Crowd boo’s and blood pressure and anger rises. Our sense of fairness has been violated and we are ready to fight when it comes to fairness.

We hear of a serial killer getting caught, convicted, then life in prison. We scream “not fair, do the same things to him he did to others!”

Or worse than that a serial killer gets put on death rowe then he gets saved and we know he is forgiven all his sins and is going to the same heaven we are! Silently now we scream at God “not fair! Bad call God!”

This attitude reveals some ugly sins in us. This attitude whether expressed or suppressed reveals a judgmental attitude that Jesus tells us not to do. We are judging other people by using the standard of our own life. We are setting ourselves up on the judges bench and thinking we know what people deserve or don’t deserve. We are to exercise judgment using the Word of God as our standard but not to judge using our own lives as a comparison. It reveals we really are not as fair as we would like to think about ourselves.

Ill. This attitude was revealed in Jonah who God called to preach to Ninevah. He finally goes and preaches God’s wrath and judgement. Then they do the oddest thing. They repent and get right with God and God blesses them. This makes Jonah mad. After all the wickedness they have done and I told them You were going to hammer them and they repent and You bless them! We laugh at the immaturity of this but are guilty of the same attitude.

After reading list of sins in 1:29 through 32 and Paul says God’s wrath is revealed towards those who commit such sins you can hear congregation getting excited saying, “ amen, sick em Paul, wave their hankies and say preach the Word, keep going. It’s about time we heard somone gutsy enough to preach the Word. Nail those preverts. They need to repent. Then the pause as he turns and points the gospel gun at them.

“If you think you are higher up than anyone else when you point your finger at others you are wrong. It takes one to know one.” Then read 2:1 in Living Bible.

Reminds us of the level ground at the cross. This does not mean we are soft on sin or ignore it.

I. Bad call # 1:THE PROBLEM IS NOT THEM IT’S US.

We are looking at the problems and sins of the world all wrong!The church is guilty of pointing the finger at the world and proclaiming foul. We have said our society is morally drifting downward but refusing to see it in the church! Our own sins have changed the way we see things. We don’t see things properly.

We must judge ourselves before we can use the Word properly. The church is to be salt and light.

1. We must admit we (the church) have drifted from the Word of God. Show diagram.

2. We (the church) must fear judgment. We proclaim judgement will fall on America what about the churches/ pastors/ deacons? Read verse 3. I Peter 4:17 “the time has come for judgement to begin at the house of God.”

3. We must weep tears of repentance.

II. Bad call #2: WE MUST STOP COMPARING OURSELVES TO ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE WORD OF GOD.